Grid Net, the smart grid networking startup that once championed WiMAX as the communications platform of the future, has just landed its first big U.S. project to manage smart meters that connect like cellphones.

Grid Net, founded in 2006 by Cisco and Oracle alum Ray Bell, concentrated on WiMAX as the preferred network for the grid, using the 4G technology to link meters from investor GE in a number of good-sized deployments in Australia. But starting around 2010, Grid Net started supporting a broader set of wireless technologies, including LTE and cellular -- a move that turned a cellular smart meter champion like SmartSynch into a partner, rather than a competitor, late last year.

But it’s Grid Net’s software management system that’s at the core of the Consumers Energy announcement. That's because it's built to manage lots of IP-addressable end points -- smart meters, sensors, grid control devices, concentrator nodes, etc. -- connected in a more-or-less real-time network talking to a central controller.

That’s a lot different than the methods used to manage mesh radio-connected smart meter networks, which require patience while data bounces from one meter to another, working its way back to utility backhaul points. It’s also different than handing a lot of raw smart meter data to a telecommunications provider and asking it to manage the connection to the utility at the other end.

Grid Net launched PolicyNet on the U.S. market back in 2010, so we’ve been waiting awhile to hear of customer wins. Consumers Energy is a big one. The question seems to be, will we see this five-partner combo deploy elsewhere around the country? While cellular carriers have been dropping prices and agreeing to utility service terms to win more smart meter business, questions still remain on whether they’re up to the task of keeping the network up during a storm, flood or other natural disaster -- or, more to the point, during a blackout.